OAKLAND, CA - AUGUST 29: A member of the media looks at a section of the newly constructed eastern span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge during a media tour of the self-anchored suspension span tower on August 29, 2011 in Oakland, California. Contruction crews have erected twelve foot wide catwalks that connect to the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge self-anchored suspension span's tower and crews will begin to lay the nearly one mile of main cable beginning in early 2012. The bridge has been under constrution since 2002 with an estimated price tag of $6.3 billion and will have the world's tallest Self-Anchored Suspension (SAS) tower once completed. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

“What we have to do for this closure is widen out the incline section heading on to the old Bay Bridge,” explained Caltrans spokesman Bart Ney. “This is not so much challenging engineering work in this case. There’s a lot of painting.”

Challenging or not, the closure is not a sure thing. You may be able to sing in the rain, but you can’t always do bridge construction work in the rain.

“The rain is very significant this time,” said Ney. “If we get to the point where we see a big storm is going to be landing on us this weekend, we may have to push to the following weekend to actually do the work.”

If work begins and then the rain comes, they’ll have to stop – and work when they can.

“The bridge may open a little bit later than forecast,” Ney said of that scenario.

KCBS’ Mike Sugerman Reports:

At the risk of stating the obvious, KCBS’s Mike Sugerman pointed out Caltrans’ timing.

“I’ve never built a bridge before,” Sugerman told Ney. “But you’re doing this in February, when it rains a lot!”

“You don’t have a choice. The Bay Bridge is very unique, so all these different pieces have to fit together,” responded Ney. “We have to do this piece now.”

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